next day, but would contain a clause authorising the payment of all or part of the twenty-five millions for indemnifying the subjects of France for the losses they would sustain in consequence of any measures to be adopted by the United States.

The note from M. Serrurier to Mr. Forsyth, which he says he was instructed to deliver, states that the President's message had been received with the most painful surprise."

It then examines the President's charges, and justifies throughout the course taken by the French Government; and says that no communication through Mr. Livingston had afforded any reason to expect the irritation which the message of December "has revealed in a manner so deplorable: that the bill was about to be presented when the arrival of the message forced the Government to deliberate upon the part it ought to act. "Strong in its good faith and dignity, it did not think that the inexplicable act of President Jackson ought to make it absolutely renounce a resolution founded upon principle, and sentiments of good faith and good-will towards a friendly nation." Although it is aware of the extent to which the provocation from Washington has increased the difficulties, already great, it decided to apply to the Chambers to place at its disposal the twentyfive millions; and in the mean time His Majesty has resolved not to expose his Minister to hear such language as was uttered on the first of December, and has accordingly required him to return to France.

This note having been made the subject of remonstrance and complaint by the American Government, was not communicated with the other documents to Congress, Mr. Forsyth alleging that it had been considered necessary to submit it to the Government of

France before it was made public or answered, that it might be ascertained whether certain exceptionable expressions "were to be received as the result of a settled purpose in the Government, or as the mere ebullition of the Minister's indiscretion." On the notice of it by Mr. Livingston, the Minister of Foreign Affairs is understood. to have laid it before the King and the Cabinet; and the result was an unanimous approbation of every line that it contained.

After much opposition, however, and discussion in the Chambers, the appropriation was finally made, in April, by a vote of two hundred and eighty-nine to one hundred and thirty-seven; but with the condition attached to it, that the money was not to be paid until a satisfactory explanation was given by the United States for the offensive language used by the President.

In April, before Mr. Livingston left Paris, he addressed a letter to the Minister for Foreign Affairs, in which he defended the course taken by the President in his opening message, on the ground that, by the character of our Government, he was bound to make full and free communications to the Legislatures; and that such communications, exclusively concerning the United States in their interior relations, were not properly cognizable by a foreign Government. He denied, moreover, that they afforded any just cause of offence to the French Government; and he lays a stress upon the fact that the President had, in no part of his communication, ascribed to the French Government an unworthy or improper motive.

The Bank of the United States, and its branches, finding themselves in an easy condition, in consequence of the large importations of specie which it had been the

Niles's Register, Vol. XLVIII., page 200.

policy of the Government to encourage, by way of making bank paper less necessary, their accommodations were proportionally large; and thus the measures taken to lessen the amount of bank paper in circulation, served but to increase it. Money being thus abundant, a spirit of speculation began to make its appearance in the larger cities, and went on increasing in them until it extended to the smaller towns, and finally to every part of the country. Town lots and houses rose rapidly in price, then the lands near to the cities, and finally the public lands became favorite objects of speculation, until the minds of the people seemed to be in a state of intoxication from greediness of gain, and the vain belief that, by such reckless purchases, their purpose could be attained. This extravagance began in May of the current year, and continued to grow until the following year, when it reached its greatest height, and when the tide began to turn, and prices of what had been thus artificially raised by borrowed capital began to fall yet more suddenly than they had ever risen, thousands who had indulged in dreams of ideal wealth encountered disappointment and ruin.

The establishment of an Abolition Society in the city of New York, together with other indications in the Northern States of their sentiments in favor of abolishing slavery, produced great sensation in the slaveholding States in the course of the present year; and was brought to the notice of the State Legislatures of Virginia and South Carolina in the annual messages of their respective Governors.

Mr. Van Buren, who was now regarded as a candidate for the office of President, was written to for the purpose of ascertaining his sentiments on slavery; and he promptly disavowed any concurrence with that party, or

any other that was disposed to intermeddle in the question of domestic slavery in the States, which he regarded as exclusively cognizable by those States.

During this current year, the people of the Mexican Province of Texas broke off their connection with the Mexican Government, and asserted their own separate sovereignty and independence. They justified themselves for this course on the ground that they had been induced to migrate to Texas from the United States under the assurance and belief that the Mexican Government was a Federal Republic like that of the United States, and that their territory would constitute one of the members of the Confederacy, with the power of enacting their own local laws, and of exercising those rights of sovereignty which are possessed by the separate members of the United States: that, on the faith of these assurances, they had left their homes, settled in the wilds of Texas, and defended the Mexican frontiers from the incursions of the Indians; but that Santa Anna had succeeded in substituting a consolidated central government in Mexico for a Federal Republic, and had required the Texians to submit to it, and to send deputies to the Legislature of this central government; which they, believing it to be in violation of the pledges made to them, and dangerous to their liberties, rights, and interests, as well as repugnant to those principles of policy in which they had been reared, positively refused, and formally announced their refusal to the Mexicans. Upon which the central government decided to compel their submission; and, for that purpose, raised an army, commanded by General Cos, to invade Texas.

As most of the inhabitants of Texas had migrated from the United States, a lively sympathy was felt for them by the people of these States, and numerous adven

turers flocked to their standard as soldiers, while other citizens aided them with money. The Texians reckoned largely upon this sympathy; yet, after making the most liberal calculations on its influence, it seemed to be the extreme of rashness for a handful of settlers, whose gross population then probably did not exceed thirty or forty thousand, with no other resources than their rifles and their valor, to undertake to resist the power of a rich and organized government of some seven or eight millions. The disparity in point of numbers was almost that of the Lacedæmonians to the forces of Xerxes; and considering the advantage which numbers give, in the modern modes of warfare, was in reality yet greater. The result, however, of the two cases, as we shall see, proved to be the same.

On the seventh of December-the first Monday Congress assembled; and on balloting for a Speaker, James K. Polk, of Tennessee, was elected, having fiftyone more votes than his opponent, Mr. Bell, of the same State, who, by espousing the cause of Judge White for the Presidency, in preference to Mr. Van Buren, had lost the favor of General Jackson and his friends.

The next day the President sent his opening message to both Houses.

Beginning with a panegyric on the growth and prosperity of the country, and its advanced rank in the scale of nations, he gives an admonition of the danger of internal dissensions to the cause of freedom, to that of selfgovernment, and to the hopes which the success of our experiment holds out to the friends of free government everywhere.

The foreign relations are the next objects of his consideration.

Nothing yet has been done towards a settlement of